Reading for pleasure is one thing, but reading for a purpose is quite another. Over the years I’ve found it useful to be able to quickly evaluate a book for its potential usefulness. Here is a simple way to do that for nonfiction, using a handful of questions:

1. Does the book have a clear, organized argument?

The argument may be simple, such as the one in Our Ecological Footprint that says the ecological footprint is a good measure of the sustainability of civilization. Or it may be complex, such as the argument in Limits to Growth, which presents an airtight argument in the form of a computer simulation model. Even just the presentation of descriptive material is an argument, because the author is saying this is a useful and true description of something. Regardless of what the argument is, it must be presented in a clear, organized manner, so that it can be easily and correctly understood.

Examine the book’s table of contents. Does it layout the structure of the author’s main argument? Or is it more of a ramble, with the core of the argument buried somewhere in the chapters? Or worse yet, is there no real argument, but just a collection of related information and opinions?

If the table of contents passes muster, look at the preface, synopsis, introduction, or first chapter. It should present the core of what the author wants to say, in a bit more detail. In some books you may have to examine some of the ending chapters to find this.

If you cannot find the book’s main argument and understand it in a few minutes, the book is probably not going to be of much value to you.

2. Does the book speak to you?

Now that you’ve breezed through some of the key parts of the book, does it speak to you? Do you find yourself on the same wavelength as the author? Is the message coming through loud and clear? If not, you have a tough read ahead of you and may need to pass on the book.

3. Is the argument an emotional or a logical one?

Too many books present mostly an emotional argument. Some emotion is okay, so the author can transmit personality and passion, and perhaps inspire you to action. But too much emotion probably means the argument is so unsound that the author is substituting rhetoric for logic. If so, your time is better spent elsewhere.

4. Can the book pass the two lookup tests?

Years ago my brother Pete gave me some advice on how to very quickly test a book to see if it was probably going to be good or not. He said all you have to do is try two things:

First you lookup something you know a lot about, and see how correct and deep the author’s perception of it is. Then you lookup something you would like to know more about, and see how well the author helps you out there. If the book passes both tests, you have proof it is of value to you.

Now let’s assume you’ve got a copy of the book, and have read the key chapters or the whole thing. This puts you in a position to answer some even more important questions:

5. Does the book prove its central argument is true?

It should or it’s worthless. Too many books prove their argument by emotion and rhetoric. They say, in so many words, that so and so must be true and you should believe it, without ever presenting evidence why. Let’s examine some examples:

The central argument of Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance is that the global environmental sustainability problem exists and needs to be solved by “A Global Marshall Plan” as presented in the last chapter. The plan has five strategic goals, like Stabilizing World Population and The Rapid Creation and Development of Environmentally Appropriate Technologies. The goals, why they are important, and how to reach them are described briefly.

Unfortunately, there is no proof whatsoever this approach will work. For example, Gore argues we can stabilize world population by a global demographic transition to lower population growth rates, by allocating resources to fund key programs, developing effective programs to reduce infant mortality and increase the health of children, and making birth control devices ubiquitously available. But he presents insufficient proof this will work. Specifically, he presents no evidence that anything in the plan will cause nations to commit resources to what he suggests. Overall, his five point plan comes across as a noble wish list. There is no analysis showing why these five points were chosen versus others, which makes their selection arbitrary.

By contrast, Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel examined competing hypotheses and competing evidence for why Western Civilization has become the world’s dominant culture. The book is one long, cohesive, carefully reasoned, evidence based argument. It concluded that the central reason the Anglo Saxon culture of Europe and North America became dominant was not “cultural or racial differences, but rather … environmental differences powerfully amplified by various positive feedback loops.” (source)

The error in Earth in the Balance is a common pattern, one that could be called the “we must do this” solution failure pattern. Probably over half of the solution oriented environmental literature commits this error. It presents what we should do, and implores the world to do it, but fails to address the issue that if there is no reason for the key agents in the system to do it right now, it won’t get done.

6. Does the book get to the bottom of its subject?

Non fiction is in general descriptive or prescriptive. It describes what is or what should be. To avoid wandering all over the universe, a book should stick to a single subject. To give the reader maximum value, a book should get to the bottom of its subject.

This means a book should go well past superficial and well known coverage of its subject. It needs to be reasonably complete. What it leaves out, especially to a reader who is unable to spot what’s missing, can be much more important that what it leaves in.

Let’s take a look at a descriptive example. Each year the Worldwatch Institute publishes a medium sized book called Vital Signs. It contains high quality data and commentary on global trends, with emphasis on the environment. It is a descriptive book, because it does not attempt to explain why a trend is happening, other than at the proximate (immediate) level.

However the Vital Signs series does not get to the bottom of even the descriptive side of its data. In 2001 I wrote the Worldwatch Institute, and asked them what they thought of adding a new type of data to the series. It would be “metadata,” which is data about data. I gave the example of a graph showing the number of unsolved environmental problems, and speculated that the graph would show a relentless increase. I argued that this graph would be far more important than the others, because it would summarize the problem of the problem symptoms as a whole. I even included a sample hypothetical graph. They replied that such data was not important.

As a prescriptive example, consider Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins. As former President Bill Clinton writes on the back cover, “Natural Capitalism basically proves beyond any argument that there are presently available technologies, and those just on the horizon, which will permit us to get richer by cleaning, not by spoiling, the environment.” The book painted an in depth picture of how the world economy could move to a sustainable path, by switching to better industrial practices. It was extraordinarily well received when it was published in 1999. It seemed that perhaps this was the answer, and that industry would take the lead and solve the problem.

However nothing happened, because the book did not get to the bottom of its subject. It was essentially only a “technical solution.” It failed to address the “social side” of the problem. It never got to the bottom of this question: Why is the world so against adopting a solution to the problem? The book blithely assumed that by showing an attractive future in detail, corporations would take the lead and decide to move to that future. They did not, because of factors the book never addressed.

If a book doesn’t get to the bottom of its subject, or at least try to, then the waiter has delivered a glass that is half full to your table, but charged you for a full one.

7. Does the book follow the 80/20 rule?

No book can cover its subject completely. To be effective, an article or book must focus on the 20% of the issue that makes 80% of the difference. In other words, it must dwell on what is important. More than any other criteria, this is what separates the diamonds from the dirt. A book can come up short in all the above criteria, but if it comes through on the 80/20 rule, then it may be of value anyhow. Let’s look at two examples:

In 1968 Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb. The book itself was a bomb, because it forecast that “in the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death.” This did not happen, causing many (and perhaps most) to write off Ehrlich as a crackpot.

But those who did missed the point. Population is a key factor that must be understood and managed. It is an excellent example of how, if the key factors of a complex problem are correctly identified and then resolved, then the entire problem is solved.

In 1962 Silent Spring awoke the world to the problem of pesticides, which in turn helped lead to the beginning of the modern environmental movement. But the book did not cover the entire problem of environmental degradation. Nor did it cover the whole gamut of pesticides. Instead, it focused on mostly one pesticide, DDT.

What Miss Carson had found was a high leverage point in the system to push on, by following the 80/20 rule. In her case it was more like the 99/1 rule. The widespread use of DDT was the one human action that was making all the difference. It caused farmers, businessmen, government officials, and even many scientists to support the extensive, indiscriminate use of pesticides. The use of DDT, in turn, enhanced the illusion that the world did not need to not care very much at all about the heath of the biosphere.

In reality DDT was an “elixir of death” which had the potential to lead to a Silent Spring. When the use of DDT was soon banned, the illusion mentioned above was shattered, and the full truth was revealed.

Apparently we need a few more books that follow the 80/20 rule so well.

Reading time is scarce. These seven criteria should be enough for you to make the most of it. I hope they can help you as much as they have helped me.

Happy reading,

Jack Harich
June 13, 2005

This article is also available as a PDF file. However the PDF file version lacks the book cover images.

These thoughts were written up as part of an Atlanta environmental book club led by Patty Durand.

The analysis was performed over a seven year period from 2003 to 2010. The results are summarized in the Summary of Analysis Results, the top of which is shown below:

Click on the table for the full table and a high level discussion of analysis results.

The Universal Causal Chain

This is the solution causal chain present in all problems. Popular approaches to solving the sustainability problem see only what's obvious: the black arrows. This leads to using superficial solutions to push on low leverage points to resolve intermediate causes.

Popular solutions are superficial because they fail to see into the fundamental layer, where the complete causal chain runs to root causes. It's an easy trap to fall into because it intuitively seems that popular solutions like renewable energy and strong regulations should solve the sustainability problem. But they can't, because they don't resolve the root causes.

In the analytical approach, root cause analysis penetrates the fundamental layer to find the well hidden red arrow. Further analysis finds the blue arrow.Fundamental solution elements are then developed to create the green arrow which solves the problem. For more see Causal Chain in the glossary.

This is no different from what the ancient Romans did. It’s a strategy of divide and conquer. Subproblems like these are several orders of magnitude easier to solve because you are no longer trying (in vain) to solve them simultaneously without realizing it. This strategy has changed millions of other problems from insolvable to solvable, so it should work here too.

For example, multiplying 222 times 222 in your head is for most of us impossible. But doing it on paper, decomposing the problem into nine cases of 2 times 2 and then adding up the results, changes the problem from insolvable to solvable.

Change resistance is the tendency for a system to resist change even when a surprisingly large amount of force is applied.

Overcoming change resistance is the crux of the problem, because if the system is resisting change then none of the other subproblems are solvable. Therefore this subproblem must be solved first. Until it is solved, effort to solve the other three subproblems is largely wasted effort.

The root cause of successful change resistance appears to be effective deception in the political powerplace. Too many voters and politicians are being deceived into thinking sustainability is a low priority and need not be solved now.

The high leverage point for resolving the root cause is to raise general ability to detect political deception. We need to inoculate people against deceptive false memes because once people are infected by falsehoods, it’s very hard to change their minds to see the truth.

Life form improper coupling occurs when two social life forms are not working together in harmony.

In the sustainability problem, large for-profit corporations are not cooperating smoothly with people. Instead, too many corporations are dominating political decision making to their own advantage, as shown by their strenuous opposition to solving the environmental sustainability problem.

The root cause appears to be mutually exclusive goals. The goal of the corporate life form is maximization of profits, while the goal of the human life form is optimization of quality of life, for those living and their descendents. These two goals cannot be both achieved in the same system. One side will win and the other side will lose. Guess which side is losing?

The high leverage point for resolving the root cause follows easily. If the root cause is corporations have the wrong goal, then the high leverage point is to reengineer the modern corporation to have the right goal.

The world’s solution model for solving important problems like sustainability, recurring wars, recurring recessions, excessive economic inequality, and institutional poverty has drifted so far it’s unable to solve the problem.

The root cause appears to be low quality of governmental political decisions. Various steps in the decision making process are not working properly, resulting in inability to proactively solve many difficult problems.

This indicates low decision making process maturity. The high leverage point for resolving the root cause is to raise the maturity of the political decision making process.

In the environmental proper coupling subproblem the world’s economic system is improperly coupled to the environment. Environmental impact from economic system growth has exceeded the capacity of the environment to recycle that impact.

This subproblem is what the world sees as the problem to solve. The analysis shows that to be a false assumption, however. The change resistance subproblem must be solved first.

The root cause appears to be high transaction costs for managing common property (like the air we breath). This means that presently there is no way to manage common property efficiently enough to do it sustainably.

The high leverage point for resolving the root cause is to allow new types of social agents (such as new types of corporations) to appear, in order to radically lower transaction costs.

Solutions

There must be a reason popular solutions are not working.

Given the principle that all problems arise from their root causes, the reason popular solutions are not working (after over 40 years of millions of people trying) is popular solutions do not resolve root causes.

This is Thwink.org’s most fundamental insight.

Summary of Solution Elements

Using the results of the analysis as input, 12 solutions elements were developed. Each resolves a specific root cause and thus solves one of the four subproblems, as shown below:

Click on the table for a high level discussion of the solution elements and to learn how you can hit the bullseye.

The 4 Subproblems

The solutions you are about to see differ radically from popular solutions, because each resolves a specific root cause for a single subproblem. The right subproblems were found earlier in the analysis step, which decomposed the one big Gordian Knot of a problem into The Four Subproblems of the Sustainability Problem.

Everything changes with a root cause resolution approach. You are no longer firing away at a target you can’t see. Once the analysis builds a model of the problem and finds the root causes and their high leverage points, solutions are developed to push on the leverage points.

Because each solution is aimed at resolving a specific known root cause, you can't miss. You hit the bullseye every time. It's like shooting at a target ten feet away. The bullseye is the root cause. That's why Root Cause Analysis is so fantastically powerful.

The high leverage point for overcoming change resistance is to raise general ability to detect political deception. We have to somehow make people truth literate so they can’t be fooled so easily by deceptive politicians.

This will not be easy. Overcoming change resistance is the crux of the problem and must be solved first, so it takes nine solution elements to solve this subproblem. The first is the key to it all.

B. How to Achieve Life Form Proper Coupling

In this subproblem the analysis found that two social life forms, large for-profit corporations and people, have conflicting goals. The high leverage point is correctness of goals for artificial life forms. Since the one causing the problem right now is Corporatis profitis, this means we have to reengineer the modern corporation to have the right goal.

Corporations were never designed in a comprehensive manner to serve the people. They evolved. What we have today can be called Corporation 1.0. It serves itself. What we need instead is Corporation 2.0. This life form is designed to serve people rather than itself. Its new role will be that of a trusted servant whose goal is providing the goods and services needed to optimize quality of life for people in a sustainable manner.

What’s drifted too far is the decision making model that governments use to decide what to do. It’s incapable of solving the sustainability problem.

The high leverage point is to greatly improve the maturity of the political decision making process. Like Corporation 1.0, the process was never designed. It evolved. It’s thus not quite what we want.

The solution works like this: Imagine what it would be like if politicians were rated on the quality of their decisions. They would start competing to see who could improve quality of life and the common good the most. That would lead to the most pleasant Race to the Top the world has ever seen.

Presently the world’s economic system is improperly coupled to the environment. The high leverage point is allow new types of social agents to appear to radically reduce the cost of managing the sustainability problem.

This can be done with non-profit stewardship corporations. Each steward would have the goal of sustainably managing some portion of the sustainability problem. Like the way corporations charge prices for their goods and services, stewards would charge fees for ecosystem service use. The income goes to solving the problem.

Corporations gave us the Industrial Revolution. That revolution is incomplete until stewards give us the Sustainability Revolution.

This analyzes the world’s standard political system and explains why it’s operating for the benefit of special interests instead of the common good. Several sample solutions are presented to help get you thwinking.

Note how generic most of the tools/concepts are. They apply to far more than the sustainability problem. Thus the glossary is really The Problem Solver's Guide to Difficult Social System Problems, using the sustainability problem as a running example.